Conditional Fees – who wins?

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Ian Gray, Litigation head at Eversheds, looks back on the firm’s experience of alternative fee arrangements in commercial disputes, explains the lessons learned, and looks ahead to the future of dispute funding

One-off conditional fees

I remember being told around 1998, just prior to the introduction of conditional fees, that the general counsel of one large client was fed up that litigation lawyers did not have any ‘skin in the game’ and that, as a result, they ran cases too far, without a care for the costs. In the years that followed, we did a series of small and large conditional-fee cases. In truth, we had some tough experiences along the way, at times losing more than just some skin.

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Financial mis-selling in Ireland and the importance of knowing the consumer

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

John O’Riordan of Dillon Eustace explains what advisers should bear in mind

There has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of claims relating to the alleged mis-selling of financial products to consumers in Ireland. These claims have been varied in their nature but essentially they have a common theme, the sale of an unsuitable financial product to a customer, on the basis of incorrect and/or misleading advice.

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A better Judiciary to realise Turkey’s potential

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Mehmet Gün, senior partner at Gün + Partners, examines the difficulties facing the Turkish judiciary and how essential a first-class justice system is to Turkey’s progress

In the 1980s, Turkey undertook significant liberalisation of its national economy. Since then, liberalisation has increasingly become a pivotal part of the international economy. Between the 1980s and 2000, Turkey learnt some very important lessons in the form of economic crises and was saved by International Monetary Fund programmes.

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The Second 50 – Batten Down

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The LB100’s regional players have seen starkly divided fortunes with the South West players sailing ahead while northern firms face choppy waters

Collectively, the 29 regional firms in the second half of the Legal Business 100 (LB100) trail in the wake of other peer groups. While average revenue is £38.4m, a little below the £39m of the second 50 as a whole, revenue per lawyer (RPL) is 9% lower than the average for firms ranked 51-100. In terms of profits, average profit per lawyer (PPL) is £45,000, some 10% lower than the bottom 50 average, while profit per equity partner (PEP) is £309,000. Continue reading “The Second 50 – Batten Down”

LB100: The Top 25 – Wind in their Sails

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Consolidating firms are jostling for position in the race to dominate international and UK markets. But even amid fairer conditions, the course to victory is uncertain.

‘To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.’

Franklin D Roosevelt, 1938

‘One feels from the body language out there that firms which have come through the recession successfully are beginning to unwind, beginning to stretch a bit, beginning to feel as though more business is coming back – particularly in the corporate market. The corporate partners who had to lay low for some years are starting to unfurl their wings a little bit and ruffle their feathers.’

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LB100 2014: Behind the Numbers – Profitability Revealed

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Which firms are the most profitable?

In this table we blend together all of our profitability measures, including PEP, profit per lawyer and profit margin to discover which of the top 100 firms are the most profitable. The 100 firms have been ranked according to their mean rank across all three measurements. Continue reading “LB100 2014: Behind the Numbers – Profitability Revealed”

LB100: Shipping and Insurance – Peaks and Troughs

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If the post-Lehman years have in general been good to the City’s insurance and shipping specialists, 2013/14 has been a year of starkly diverging fortunes amid the familiar backdrop of margin pressure on the volume end of the market.

As such, this loose grouping of law firms has seen some of the strongest performances in the LB100 in 2014, while others have weathered falling revenues and job cuts.

This is most strikingly demonstrated in the two most prominent brands in the City insurance market, Clyde & Co and Ince & Co. While the former has largely sustained its robust growth of recent years, with an 8% increase in global revenues to £365.1m and with profits increasing 10% to £92.8m, Ince has seen a 7% fall in income to £86.7m.

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